back to article Docker part 4: Microsoft CAN'T ignore it. Aux armes, citoyens!

It's clear that Docker is here to stay, but we must temper our enthusiasm with pragmatism and a careful analysis of history. There are many pieces on the chessboard to consider, and each of them has a mind of its own. Docker is simultaneously a big fish (thanks to the hype around it) and a relative minnow compared to the tech …

  1. Disko
    Coat

    Name recognition...

    ...doesn't hurt, given that probably 90% of middle muppetment own at least one pair of Dockers.

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    2. Anonymous Coward
      Happy

      Re: Name recognition...

      Better than name recognition is the (Silicon Valley stupid) logo

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  2. Infernoz Bronze badge
    Meh

    What about illuminos Zones

    You know illuminos, that fully Open Source fork of OpenSolaris which most of the original OpenSolaris developers jump ship to after Oracle tried to borg it.

    Zones are secure by default, provide deeper OS support than Linux containers like Docker, and supports flexible limits for CPU, disk, IO and network use to throttle rogue stuff inside Zones.

    illuminos boots from ZFS too and has DTrace on everything.

    I'm looking at it illuminos now because I want a proper secure OS and "container" security.

    1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

      Re: What about illuminos Zones

      Don't forget OpenIndianna. Or BSD Jails. Or Virtuozzo. Or OpenVZ. Or Rocket. Or...

      Just because you have a containerization tech doesn't mean you have momentum, hype, a community, backing, industry support, an "app store", community input to that "app store", cloud provider adoption, etc. etc. etc.

      Docker does.

      That makes Docker quantitatively as well as qualitatively different from any of the other containerization techs that have gone before. Technology doesn't matter here nearly so much as politics, damned politics and "moolah, moolah, moolah, moo-la-haaaaaaaaaaa..."

      Parallels has virty tech, they aren't a threat to VMware. Virtualbox is groovy, nobody runs a large datacenter on it. Solairs/OpenIndianna/Illuminos jails are awesome and even have enterprise support...but there isn't a heck of a lot of cloud provider adoption, hype or community support.

      That isn't to say it couldn't happen. It's just that these are projects by engineers, for engineers. And that means they likely won't succeed where the marketdroids and moneymen walk.

  3. Hans 1
    Windows

    >For the first time in fifteen years, Microsoft is being forced to compete on merit.

    You probably wanna tell the numpties over 'ere that their software sucks, coz they do not listen to me ...

    Besides, apache config file is the easiest thing there ... create your own template, copy it over to the new box, here replace, there there replace .... done. Not half an hour searching through the IIS 7/8 ui saying to self: Where the fuck did they put that checkbox to disable active content in that folder ?

    Christ, a nightmare!

    Imagine apache choose to re-arrange the config file ... I know my regex to find what I need.

    1. The Original Steve

      I presume you never found the "Export Configuration" button in the Shared Configuration option?

      Or: Backup-WebConfiguration -Name "My Backup"

      With the equally hard to decipher command: Restore-WebConfiguration -Name "My Backup"

    2. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

      I gotta be honest when I say I can't picture actually using IIS in production. I just can't. Apache is ground into my bones. I've redone those configs so many times that I don't even need the comments in httpd.conf anymore.

      That said, I have seen what httpd.conf does to newbies. It's about what IIS does to me. So whenever I picture starting Apache from scratch I imagine someone asking me to take all my websites and move them to IIS. Then I quickly think of something else before that becomes a desire to self-harm.

      :/

  4. Doug Bostrom

    Rendered obsolete by miniature mongrel poodles

    Regardless of Docker's fate it's not remotely rocket science to build a generic machine suited for hosting containerized applications and too distribute that by whatever means. Putting together containerized applications isn't difficult either.

    For instance, how long is it going to take Atlassian to figure out how to deploy a complete installation (including OS platform) of JIRA that will boot along with other application denizens on a vanilla container base? I'm not exactly the brightest bulb on the ceiling but it took only about 4 hours of noodling with Xen from a cold start to accomplish that and has subsequently saved oodles of time and money. People tend to notice stuff like this.

    Picking again on them as an example, maybe Atlassian is already providing a turnkey containerized instance option; it's so likely and inevitable is it worth checking?

    As it happens it isn't Windows that is suited for this work and it's hard to ignore that; the contrast in efficiency and cost for putting applications in/on containers between Windows and other options not freighted with so much baggage is too glaring to miss.

    It also may be that containerization is at root so simple there's little need for big gorillas in the picture.

    Meanwhile, if one is not using a truly canned item such as JIRA then it seems as though containerization does little to save one from configuration.

    1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

      Re: Rendered obsolete by miniature mongrel poodles

      Think of Docker as being "Steam for enterprise applications and web development platforms" and you might begin to grok what it's bringing to the table. Stop thinking of things in terms of "I'm a sysadmin with a strong ops background who can figure this out if you pay me" and start thinking of it from the standpoint of business owners and developers who don't want to have to pay ops guys at all.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Rendered obsolete by miniature mongrel poodles

        "business owners and developers who don't want to have to pay ops guys at all."

        I think I get the difference you're describing, but if we accept that as a truism I'm not sure where that leaves sysadmin types in this brave new dockered world. That is, it's not a new condition that suits and programmers don't want to deal with (or pay) a sysadmin -- that pre-dates docker, VMs, clouds, and every other thing I can think of. What I'm not following is what you're saying we can and should do about it.

        1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

          Re: Rendered obsolete by miniature mongrel poodles

          Sysadmins can't do anything about it. Every major new tech that comes out with a significant ease of use change means fewer sysadmins are required than were before. That's why ease of use matters; it gets rid of the need for priests to tend the temple and allows a single contracted janitorial team to handle hundreds of companies as they do their rounds every night.

          If you're looking for "how can docker make me, as an Ops guy, better off" the chances are that it won't. Oh, if you master it, you could probably become a "containerization consultant" and be one of the janitors tending multiple businesses, but since it is the equivalent of moving from "having to carefully manage each install of each app separately" to "click install in the app store", it removes a lot of why you might need to be there.

          And that, right there, is why it is valuable to business. Unfortunately, in this instance, "good for the business" is "bad for the ops guys".

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Rendered obsolete by miniature mongrel poodles

            "Sysadmins can't do anything about it."

            Right, thought so. So what you *are* saying is, "you Sysadmin lot are going to be out of a job, study up on something else." Got it.

      2. Epobirs

        Re: Rendered obsolete by miniature mongrel poodles

        Well, isn't that where Microsoft is going with its app store being opened up to all sorts of apps, not just WinRT? Docker could be a very convenient function for them to integrate.

        1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

          Re: Rendered obsolete by miniature mongrel poodles

          Be honest with yourself here, mate: do you see "Dave's Apache Highmem Config, Optimised for 50,000 user Wordpress installs including OOB integration with Cloudflare and automated Dropbox Backups" ever coming to the Microsoft Store? Really?

          Because that's exactly the sort of package that makes Docker attractive. And it's exactly the sort of package I have a hard time believing will show up in Microsoft's App Store.

  5. John Sanders
    FAIL

    The Lannisters sends their regards...

    """Like it or not, they're now a minor house in Silicon Valley's Game of Thrones."""

    """Every piece of advice they receive will come with a hidden agenda. Every partnership will be a veiled attempt at storming their castle and taking all their gold. Every hand of friendship conceals a dagger and every smile hides deception."""

    And they go and partner with Microsoft, who would eat its babies if that meant getting more control of another 0.1% more of the IT industry.

    1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

      Re: The Lannisters sends their regards...

      RedHat are any better? VMware? Oracle? Google?

      Not a lot of honour amongst IT companies.

      1. John Sanders
        Meh

        Re: The Lannisters sends their regards...

        """RedHat are any better? VMware? Oracle? Google?"""

        To my knowledge only Microsoft actively sabotages the competition by any means necessary.

        Also I do not remember of VMWare or Google, or RedHat for that matter deliberately trying to subvert the entire industry.

        Oracle is an entire different matter, but they are way less evil than MS, I have never heard or read of Larry claiming a competitor is a cancer.

        1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

          Re: The Lannisters sends their regards...

          Then you don't get out enough.

          VMware: look up "PEX and Nutanix". Or really, any sales strategy involving a VMware partner that has a successful product.

          Google: Oh, let me count the ways in which they have actively tried to sabotage the competition. But let's start with a discussion about Android restrictions, shall we?

          RedHat: systemd.

  6. Salts

    Enjoying this series

    The title says it :-)

    1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

      Re: Enjoying this series

      Merci!

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sweary Mary

    Great series of articles. It must be fun to be a super grade commentard err journo.

    I thoroughly agree with your fundamental point - they've got the momentum, name and all the other bits that will ensure success unless they do something truly stupid.

    Losing their nerve and selling out early to x will probably turn out to be stupid. If the major shareholders who are hopefully the creators of this thing keep it together, then they will become rich beyond avarice rather than just mere millionaires.

    Cheers

    Jon

    {x: x ∈ (microsoft, vmware, redhat, ...)}

  8. W. Anderson

    It is quite probable that "any" Microsoft licensing or independent use of "Docker" technology will in the long run not be in compliance with the Docker APIs and protocols, and maybe even ignore and challenge the Docker Open Source Licensing model.

    The Windows "Docker" technology is sure to subvert and crash any Linux Docker technology, een in a supposed "cooperative" Microsoft Azure Cloud environment, with the intention of pushing Linux VM clients over to Windows Server base.

    This type subversive character is and has always been the mantra of Microsoft, whether Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer was at the helm. Whether such draconian and sabotage seeking personality will change under new stewardship is yet to be discovered.

    1. Salts

      @W Anderson

      MS is just not that relevant in this arena it is the strong hold of Linux, web apps that scale out for an unknown number of consumers, start up companies that go ballistic, not an enterprise with well defined usage.

      When I look at this, it is how to move an online business to take advantage of cloud infrastructure, being able to move the app from one service to the next to take advantage of better offers, whatever the metric you use, for what is better. Being able to just migrate from one provider to the next with no lock in, if MS breaks the business then they can't even be considered, what makes the technology even better is that it costs very little to spin up a container and test on a suppliers cloud offering, before moving.

      If as you grow you decide to bring it in house, then the same applies, the whole business model can be kept in the could, while in house infrastructure is tested and brought online, doing it in reverse also works, get it working in house and move it out.

      IMHO this is what TP is saying, none of the tech titans want this, but none of them can at the moment subvert it and this makes Docker very disruptive and good for the customer, anything good for a customer is very disruptive for a supplier :-)

      I am not anti MS, however this tech has MS between a rock and a hard place, if they don't play nice they will become irrelevant.

  9. Phil_Evans

    History repeating?

    was this not the promised land that VMware and Hyper-V were supposed to deliver? Well-behaved stacks on well-partitioned resources? And then the monkeys got in and made it all 'dynamic' and 'resource-balanced' or other such lies.

    The fact that great chunks of Windows just stares agog at you (or a process) repeatedly and un-predictably means that this will probably be Microsoft simply kicking the can further down the road. What's the point in having a neat pile of cards (Docker) on top of a Jenga stack (Hyper-Xen-Ware thing) where the OS is getting back closer to the hardware it used to create such mischief with?

    Now, were MSFT to (re)write (another) (failed) (attempt at) (a derivative of) Windows to simply run Docker, then hey, I'm listening. Otherwise, I have to serve a banqueted party with a Swiss Army knife.

    But agree that it will take years for any of the existing investments to expire and that same time for alliances to form.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: History repeating?

      "was this not the promised land that VMware and Hyper-V were supposed to deliver? Well-behaved stacks on well-partitioned resources?"

      Well, quite.

      I;m a few days late to these articles and a few months/years late to containers in general, but take away the hype and the shiny and I'm hearing the same "app store ease of use" stuff that we first heard about several years ago with VMware appliances and (maybe) with things like Bitnami pre-packaged application stacks? And where are those now?

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